1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to communications and more specifically to intuitive user interfaces for managing communications.
2. Introduction
Manufacturers of touch tone telephones, such as phones meeting ITU-T standard Q.23, have supplemented the functionality of touch tone telephones over the years by adding feature buttons and menus. Users can activate simple features via buttons, and more complex features via hierarchical menus actuated by track balls, quadrant style pointers and the like. Some telephones, such as smartphones and other mobile phones, include touch sensitive displays are also known. However, these touch screen telephones simply replace touchtone buttons and feature buttons or menus with actuator buttons designated by an icon on the touch screen that is delineated as the equivalent functionality. Touch screen telephones have advanced the art a bit by allowing the user to touch an entry in a contact database to call that contact or touch a message to contact the caller who left the message. In addition, there is click to call capability within some IP Softphones.
User testing indicates that certain features make such a user interface more intuitive. Many people have trouble remembering and implementing specific button sequences for advanced functionality, such as a conference call, selectively drop a caller, place on hold, and answer new calls. In addition, the use of feature buttons and the appropriate sequences of feature buttons can also be confusing. This problem is exacerbated by innumerable user interface variations from brand to brand and from model to model. This unintuitive interface leads to mistakes such as dropped calls and, as a result, lost productivity.
These problems are made worse in mobile platforms. For example, when an individual holds a tablet sized phone, PC or other electronic device, the individual's fingers must simultaneously provide both the function of support and touch screen or key activation. Typically, such devices have borrowed from the desktop, i.e. mouse and keyboard driven, metaphor by utilizing drop down menus. Commonly, these drop down menus are located at the top of the screen. This results in a very non ergonomic arrangement for a handheld device.